


Line of Duty

by branwyn



Series: Person of Interest stories by branwyn [8]
Category: Person of Interest (TV)
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Bedside Vigils, Character A has to beat/torture character B because Character A is disguised as an enemy, Character expects to be punished for failure but is shown unexpected concern, Character isn't used to being loved and shown tenderness/affection, M/M, Patching Up & Comforting Loved One Who Went Undercover to Be a Bait and Got Raped as Consequence, Technically awful attempts at comfort are actually very comforting, Undercover in a leather club disguised as masochist must endure torture for the mission
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-15
Updated: 2020-05-15
Packaged: 2021-03-03 00:09:07
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 14,669
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24195676
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/branwyn/pseuds/branwyn
Summary: There's no part of Lionel that Reese won't use if he has to.
Relationships: Lionel Fusco/John Reese
Series: Person of Interest stories by branwyn [8]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1641835
Comments: 4
Kudos: 33
Collections: Hurt Comfort Exchange 2020





	Line of Duty

**Author's Note:**

  * For [livenudebigfoot](https://archiveofourown.org/users/livenudebigfoot/gifts).



> [loop](https://youtu.be/SzURg7UBK4I)

1.

They don’t have designated smoking areas outside the precinct anymore. Nowadays, government property means no smoking, anywhere, end of story.

Normally, this is no skin off Lionel’s nose. He only started smoking in the first place because he felt bad when people tried to bum off him and he couldn’t help out. About five years ago, he quit altogether.

“Lemme bum one,” says Lionel, tapping Patrick Simmons on the arm.

“Not expecting to die of old age, are we, Fusco?” He smiles with half his mouth and fishes a pack out of his pocket.

Lionel’s only a little taken aback when Simmons produces the lighter. He leans in to catch a light and for a second, all he can see is the orange glow of the flame and the eclipsing dark of Simmons’ hands. He steps back as fast as he can.

“So what’s this about, why’d you drag me out here?” says Lionel, after a drag or two.

“I don’t need a reason to lay eyes on you,” Simmons retorts. “Keeping track of what you get up to is my job.”

It’s easier to look real unimpressed when there’s a cloud of smoke between you and the other guy. “Yeah, but you got something going on, though,” says Lionel.

Simmons’ eyes narrow. “There’s a meeting tomorrow night,” he grits out, like Lionel’s forcing him to confess some kind of deep dark secret. “I need back up, so you’re gonna be there.”

“No kidding? Out of everybody in HR, I’m the one you want watching your back. I’m touched, Simmons.”

“I’d watch that smart mouth of yours if I was you. The meet’s at the club.”

It doesn’t click right off. It’s been a long time since he even heard anybody talk about the place. HR’s got its hooks in a lot of bars, restaurants, diners, but there’s only one _club_.

“Forget it.” Lionel barks out a laugh. “You need a date, you can fill out an Angler profile like everyone else.”

Simmons leans in, slow and oppressive, like he’s making the air around him too thick to breathe. 

“You do what I tell you, and consider yourself lucky I think you’re still capable of following orders. Once I can no longer say that about you, you stop being any use to me.”

Lionel keeps glaring. “You _know_ why I don’t go there no more, Simmons.” 

Simmons’ mouth twists. The look he’s wearing says that he remembers, all right, and he doesn’t want to talk about it. “Ancient history,” he mutters. “Don’t get your panties in a twist. These people know better than to mess with HR.”

“Oh, so HR is gonna look after me, huh? Just like they did last time I was there.”

“You some kind of damsel in distress, Lionel? You want I should find you some nice lady detective from SVU to cry all over?” 

“Nice try. Not even you can drag me back to that joint, Simmons. Forget it.” He looks aside and flicks his ash, dismissive. His mind’s made up. 

It’s been a long time since Lionel kicked back against orders like this. Maybe he never did. When he ran with Stills’ crew, they didn’t do orders, just favors. Like, come help me clean up this crime scene, thanks pal, go buy yourself something nice. Back then, the only time Lionel saw Simmons was at cop get-togethers. Working on HR stuff together is a new thing since Stills went missing. 

“HR recognizes that this is above and beyond,” Simmons grinds out. “There’s a bonus at the end. Eight grand.”

Lionel’s heart sinks. He can’t turn that down. There’s not a cop on HR’s payroll that would turn that down. If he tries, he’s going to cross the line from fishy behavior to acting too suspicious to ignore. 

Besides, even if Simmons miraculously takes his no for an answer, the other people Lionel answers to aren’t that understanding.

“Fuck it,” he sighs. “What time?”

When Simmons leaves, Lionel stays where he is. He keeps puffing away at his cigarette, tasting all the greasy chemicals you can only taste when it’s your first one, or your first one after a long while. No one can see him in the lee of the loading bay ramp, and if anyone does, the cigarette is a good excuse for hanging out by himself in a weird spot. He can’t stay away from his desk too much longer, but he’s still waiting on something.

Lionel takes a drag, and then something hard knocks against his wrist. He drops the cigarette in a tiny shower of sparks. “Hey!” he snaps.

“You should take better care of your lungs,” Reese says, in the soft, creepy voice of his. “You already wheeze when you run.”

“Yeah, thanks for the consult, doc.” He brushes some of the ash off his jacket. “You get what you needed out of that?”

Reese had showed up at his apartment late last night, just long enough to give him marching orders: HR might approach him about a job, Lionel was supposed to do whatever it took to get himself assigned to it. He didn’t have any details, so Lionel agreed without knowing what he was agreeing to. Which has been kind of a theme in his life, these last ten years. 

He’s expecting Reese to light into him for trying to tell Simmons no at first, but instead he just stands there, looking down on him like there’s something important he can’t figure out.

“What’s the story with you and this club?” says Reese, so low and quiet you could make the mistake of thinking it was a casual inquiry.

“Ask Glasses to consult his tea leaves,” Lionel says. “Or better yet, mind your own business for once.”

“Anything that could affect the op is my business.” 

“Ancient history’s got nothing to do with your op.” He shoves his hands in his coat pockets. “Anyway, it’s personal.”

Reese’s expression turns stony. Suddenly he steps close, crowding Lionel back against the wall, only Lionel—he’s just not in the mood anymore.

“What are you gonna do, you wanna shove me around? Maybe pop me in the mouth? That’s real scary, big guy, but it ain’t nothing compared to what goes on at that place.”

“Simmons—”

“Forget about Simmons.” 

A muscle twitches in Reese’s jaw. “I don’t take orders from you, Fusco.”

“ _You_ told me to play my part in HR. Simmons comes with the territory. You got to let me handle him my way, or the whole thing falls apart.”

Reese just stands there, quiet and staring. The menace leaks out of his expression bit by bit, until he just looks stubborn, and kind of annoyed. 

“There’s a line I don’t cross with my assets,” he says, finally.

Lionel can’t help himself. He bursts into laughter, loud and obnoxious. 

Reese scowls. “I’m saying you can back out of this job if you want.”

“Are you kidding me? After I already said I’d be there?”

“I can take care of Simmons if I have to.”

Lionel’s not sure what he’s feeling—mad, yeah he’s mad, but there’s also some disbelief in there. _Fuckin’ typical,_ Reese looming over him, jerking his strings, then making Bambi eyes at the idea that Lionel might have to get his hands dirty in a way Reese doesn’t like.

There’s a supply truck backing into a loading bay nearby, and Lionel gives it a quick glance, trying not to look as if he’s conspiring with a wanted criminal. 

“Yeah, I bet you could,” he says quietly. “I bet between you and Glasses, you could take care of all my problems. Only it’s more convenient for you if I’m a dirtbag and my whole life’s a mess.”

“What do you want, Fusco? An apology?”

“No, but how about we don’t lie to each other, huh?” He wishes Reese hadn’t ruined that cigarette for him. “You don’t got any lines. There ain’t any part of me you wouldn’t use if you had to.”

His hands are shaking a little when he pulls his phone out to check the time. Part of Lionel is braced for Reese to just grab him, make him regret all the mouthing off, but he feels good despite that. Kind of pumped up on the adrenaline.

“I got ten minutes left to grab a sandwich before my lunch is over,” says Lionel. “We done here?”

Reese doesn’t move. Long silences aren’t usually his style, and it takes some of the fizz out of Lionel’s victory. 

Finally, he steps back, hands in his coat pockets. “I’ll be in touch,” he says. “And Fusco?”

“Yeah.” Lionel keeps his eyes on his phone, pretending to check his messages, even though nobody ever calls him but his ex.

“Don’t go anywhere with Simmons until you hear from me. Understood?”

“Yeah, sure.”

Reese stares at him like his mom used to when she thought he was lying, like she could burn the truth out of him with her eyes. 

“Keep your phone on,” he says, and then he’s gone, disappearing somewhere between two parked cars and the back end of a dumpster in an eyeblink.

*

The rest of the afternoon is quiet. Lionel sits at his desk, he shuffles paperwork. Around him the precinct goes on with its routines. People laugh, or bitch about the coffee, the weather. Miserable looking perps slink down in their chairs, cuffs rattling. Lionel doesn’t meet their eyes. He doesn’t meet most people’s eyes since Carter got busted back down to uni.

He misses her. Lionel texts her a couple of times a week and doesn’t take it personally when she doesn’t return his calls. She’s working on something. She’ll call if she needs him. But he misses having a partner around, just the companionship of it. Plus, having to cope without Carter reminds him of those weeks right after Stills disappeared, when he had to drink the whole bottle just to stop thinking about how it felt, burying a friend in some hole in the middle of the woods. There’s a part of Lionel that’s never felt warm since that night.

It was Stills that used to take him out to the club. Four, five years ago now. Place don’t exactly look like a cop bar. A guy like Simmons, for instance, wouldn’t be caught dead there if HR didn’t have its hooks in so deep that it might as well be NYPD property. Even then, he’d take someone like Lionel along. Someone lower on the food chain, that he could get away with screwing over if he needed to. 

It had been the same with Stills, except Lionel wasn’t disposable in Stills’ book. He was too useful. Lionel had found out, that first night Jimmy took him there, just how useful he could be.

What he doesn’t have is a good explanation for why he let Stills take him back after that first night. Who does that? Who walks into that kind of situation with their eyes open, not just once, but over and over? Except the explanation is the same as it is for every other fucked up thing in Lionel’s life. Early on he’d done some stuff he wasn’t comfortable with because he hated to let a friend down. And then the next time he couldn’t say no, because he’d already done it once. 

Drink enough to take the worst of the sting out of it, and you can go on that way for a long, long time. 

There’s a lot about his last visit to the club that Lionel doesn’t remember. Won’t ever remember, if he’s lucky. He was drinking hard for a reason and the liquor did the job. Mostly he recalls voices. Stills in his ear, saying his name all high and nervous. Simmons, Lionel remembers feeling fucking relieved when he heard Simmon’s weird raspy voice in the room with him. He thinks maybe Simmons was the one who took him home, but the next morning he didn’t feel like asking, and no one ever brought it up.

Five years ago. Fewer people had smartphones in 2008. He likes to think it’s possible that there’s no video of that night, no audio, nothing that Finch can dig up and share with Reese over a big bowl of whatever kind of fancy gourmet popcorn rich guys eat while they’re watching fuck-ups like Lionel roll around in the dirt.

Lionel wonders what Reese is expecting him to do at that meeting, anyway. Or Simmons, for that matter, but either way it’s the same deal. Bigger, meaner guys call the shots, and Lionel does what he’s told.

He’s never minded about that. Was never what you might call ambitious. He likes for whoever’s best for the job to be in charge. Sometimes that’s him, other times, not so much. Fighting it out for top dog just sounds like a giant hassle to him.

Maybe if he had a little more self-respect, he’d fight his way up the ladder a few more rungs, just so he’s not always the guy who gets called in for the shittiest jobs. Or maybe if he cared a little less, he could just go back to drinking. Settle in, get comfortable with his lot in life. 

It’s the caring that gets him in trouble, every damn time.

*

“Detective? Are you free to talk?”

It’s after eight. Lionel’s just reached his front door, and he kinda doesn’t feel like talking to Finch tonight. But Finch has this talent for catching him at moments when he’s tired and distracted and can’t think up a good excuse why he needs to be left alone.

“Yeah, sure.” Lionel gets inside, starts emptying his pockets. Wallet, keys, gum wrappers and coins clatter over the surface of his kitchen table. He leaves his phone there too, and tries not to think about why the charge light immediately starts blinking on and off. “What can I do for you?”

“I was going to ask you the same question,” says Finch.

“Huh? Why’s that?”

“I recognize that Mr. Reese is often in the habit of compelling your cooperation rather than asking for it. But we didn’t realize you had a personal connection with—certain elements involved in this case.”

Earlier, when Simmons was in his face, Lionel thought: if this had happened a few years ago, Reese wouldn’t have stayed hidden behind a dumpster while Simmons put the screws to him. He’d have done something, roughed Simmons up or scared him off. If they’d been strangers, Reese might have thought Lionel was worth it. But Lionel doesn’t qualify for that kind of consideration nowadays.

“You saying it would have made any difference?” Lionel yanks off his tie and tosses it on the table with the rest of his crap. “Like your partner’s real worried about my feelings.”

Mouthing off to Finch always feels wrong, like spitting on a nun’s shoe, but it’s been a long, lousy day. 

“John is, admittedly, somewhat prone to thinking in absolutes. But you’re wrong to say that it makes no difference. If nothing else—”

“Look, it’s all right,” says Lionel. “You don’t got to sweet-talk me into holding up my end. I’ll be there tomorrow.”

“But that’s what I was calling to speak to you about. We no longer need your assistance tomorrow evening.”

A heavy, cold feeling drops down over him. “Is that right?”

“We’re trying to assist a young man named Jorge Reem, who is intimately connected in some manner with the club’s owner, Daniel Corelli. We believe that Corelli is holding Mr. Reem captive with a view to having him smuggled out of the country. Corelli intends to contract with HR to provide security in transit.”

Lionel doesn’t know anybody named Corelli. Last time he was there, the club was owned by a retired vice cop named Mulready. “Smuggled, where are they taking him?”

“Corelli has a summer home in Argentina. It looks to be fairly secluded, in the mountains. Easy enough to keep Jorge there, or dispose of him if he tries to leave again. Apparently Corelli turns possessive in the throes of rejection.”

Lionel sinks down on the sagging arm of his sofa. “That don’t make any sense,” he says. “HR is cops, detectives. People who’ve got to turn up for work in the morning. A cop can't just tell his wife he’s taking a business trip south of the border, be back in a few days.”

“Which is why we initially had the idea for you to infiltrate the operation, to discover why Officer Simmons took the meeting. But it’s no great mystery, as it turns out. Simmons has just put in for a few days’ personal leave, and given his wife an excuse for his journeying outside the country that she apparently finds acceptable.”

Lionel frowns down at the phone. “Okay, and you don’t need me, that’s what you’re saying?”

“You are always a valuable asset, Detective, but you would be redundant in this case. I took the liberty of accessing your schedule for tomorrow. You’ve been ordered to take a same-day CPR/First Aid training, as your mandatory certification has expired. This will fatally conflict with the window of Simmons and Corelli’s meeting.”

“Ah, I hate the CPR training,” says Lionel. “It’s hell on a guy’s knees.”

“You would rather spend the evening with Officer Simmons? As his...date, I believe you said?” 

Finch is using that smug, know-it-all tone of voice that makes you start looking around for Reese, wondering if you can risk punching his boyfriend in the mouth without getting kneecapped. He gets real bristly over Glasses sometimes.

“I could if I needed to,” Lionel says. “Would it make your guy any safer?”

“For the purposes of this discussion, you are also ‘my guy’,” Finch snaps. “Stay _home_ , detective.”

Lionel sits there for another minute, glaring at his phone. 

When was the last time Finch or Reese ever bothered to say something like, “don’t worry about that thing we asked you for, it’s covered”? Never, that’s when. Normal operating procedure, far as Lionel can tell, is for Reese to wait until he shows up, all covered in blood or mud or whatever the hell, clutching some video or file that somebody’s life supposedly depends on, just so Reese can grin at him all smug-like, and say, “Thanks, Lionel, but it’s taken care of”.

So why did Finch just call him up all polite to let him off the hook? And where does a smart guy like him get the idea that if Lionel blows this meeting off, Simmons is just going to say, “oh, you had your CPR thing, of course,” and let it go?

Just then, the phone buzzes in his hand. He looks at the screen, expecting it to be Finch.

It’s Simmons. _The Loft. Tomorrow. 9 pm._

That CPR training is over at 7. Look at that. No conflict after all.

What was it Finch called him, redundant? Simmons doesn’t think he’s that. Not that he’s gonna admit it if Lionel asks, but Simmons picked him for this on purpose. He was there that night, barking orders at everybody, hauling Lionel up onto his feet. 

He _knows_ Lionel. 

There’s some guys who won’t bend over and take it no matter what’s on the line. They’re just not wired for it. They’ll go down kicking you in the teeth if you try to make them.

Other guys, they don’t see what’s so bad about it, long as they only have to do it once. Twice, maybe, for a good cause. 

If you’re the type that won’t take one for the team, not ever, then you make sure you know all the guys around you who will. Because you need those guys. Business can’t happen without them. 

Finch, Reese, they might be willing to give him a night off for good behavior, but Simmons? Lionel’s not gonna be quits with Simmons until HR is dead and in the ground.

*

Next morning first thing, Lionel goes to see the Captain to ask if he can reschedule his CPR certification, on account of this killer stomach bug he seems to have picked up.

Cap squints at the computer, like he can’t remember when he scheduled Lionel for the training in the first place. He tells Lionel not to come back until he’s sure he’s not gonna give his stomach crud to anybody else. 

Lionel gets a cheesesteak on the way home. They forget the peppers, so it doesn’t even cheer him up. At his apartment, he drops into an armchair, with every intention of getting up and doing a few chores around the place. Only he doesn’t move for two whole hours. He knows that if he does, he might wind up flushing two years of sobriety right down the toilet. 

He’s got a sick feeling in his gut, but at the same time there’s this heavy calm settling over him like a familiar old blanket. What’s coming is coming. He can’t get out of it, but he’s been through worse. Burying Stills in the woods was worse. He just wishes it were time to leave already. The waiting around is gonna kill him.

Finally, he takes a shower and goes looking through his closet, trying to figure out what he can wear to this joint that won’t draw the wrong kind of attention. It’s not gonna be like last time. Maybe he has to keep Simmons happy, but he’s not some meek little lamb Simmons can offer up just to get something he wants. He did all that for Stills already. It messed him up and it didn’t even help Stills in the end. No more.

He’s been thinking about this all wrong. Five years ago, he was a dirty cop and a drunk, a divorced loser whose ex wouldn’t let him near his own kid on account of his bourbon breath. Now it’s all different. He’s doing this because he’s on an undercover assignment, bringing HR down from the inside. Maybe he didn’t exactly volunteer for that job, but it stopped being about Reese and his threats awhile back. Lionel wants to do this. Making amends, that’s for him as much as it is for anybody else. He wants to be the guy who stands up for people who are getting hurt. A good cop, a good dad, a good friend, that’s the goal. He wants to make it so the next idiot who can’t bring himself to tell his buddies to get bent when they ask him to cover for their dirty work never gets put in that position to begin with. 

Even if the worst happens, it’ll feel different than it did before because of why he’s doing it. Because he has a choice. 

He always had a choice. For some reason it just never felt that way till now. 

Deep breaths. His shoulders are a little lighter. The small window in his bedroom shows that it’ll be dark outside in a couple of hours. Black jeans go on, with a black button up that he bought for a date once and never wore. Add a watch and a gold chain, and he looks like someone he’s not. Someone who’ll fit right in where he’s going.

Apart from the camera bag. But if he does this right, no one’s gonna see him with it. 

Three hours before the meeting, Lionel parks down the street from the club and goes for a stroll around the block. Photo surveillance wasn’t exactly his main strength as an investigator, but then Reese made him spend two weeks following Finch all over Manhattan. Now, he’s not so bad at it.

Lionel’s back in his car, looking through his shots and getting a firm plan of the exits in his head, when someone comes tapping on the passenger side window. Lionel starts to reach for his badge to wave them off. Then he looks over.

“Ah, jeeze,” he mutters.

Reese glares at him through the window, motioning for Lionel to roll it down. It’s November and Lionel doesn’t want chunks of busted safety glass all over his front seat, so he does. But instead of leaning down to speak to him, Reese jams his arm through the gap and unlocks the door so he can swing into the passenger seat.

“Nice to see you too,” says Lionel, not looking at him. 

“Lionel,” says Reese. “What are you doing here.”

“I’m doing my job, how about you?”

“Finch told you to stay home.”

“He also said my CPR certification was expired. Turns out, it’s good till March. Guess he don’t know everything.”

Reese covers his mouth with his hand and doesn’t say anything. It’s weird. Lionel was expecting him to be mad, but he just looks kind of uncomfortable.

“I blow off this meeting, and none of this undercover work I’ve done is gonna matter a damn,” he says, like explaining things ever helps. “Simmons will kill me. Even if he doesn’t, he’ll never trust me again. I’ll lose my access.”

Last night when Finch was telling him to sit this one out, Lionel thought maybe he was leading up to telling him he’d been cut from the team. Just like that. So long and thanks for the help, we’ll call you if we need you. He didn’t even want to admit the possibility had crossed his mind, that’s how scary that idea is. Reese might have forced him to start this, but Lionel needs to finish it, and he can’t all on his own. He’d love to say otherwise, but he knows better. He does good when he’s with good people, but if the good guys ever decide they don’t want him, he’ll probably end up going along with whoever does. It’s not a risk he wants to take.

“Let me just ask you something.” Lionel doesn’t like how his voice goes all soft and uncertain, but he can’t help it. “What did I do that you don’t want to let me in on this? You got complaints with the quality of my work?”

Reese doesn’t answer right away. “No, Lionel, there’s nothing wrong with your work,” he says finally. “I just don’t want you anywhere near the club tonight.”

“Well, that’s a shame, cause I got a meeting there in a couple of hours. Happy to steer clear afterwards, though. Might even call in a raid on the joint.”

Reese clenches his fist where his hand is resting on his knee. Lionel’s shoulders hunch. Funny how he used to think it would feel good, telling Reese where he could shove his orders.

“All right, Lionel,” he says slowly. “We can do this your way, if you tell me one thing first.”

“They don’t let dogs go to heaven. I asked the sisters when I was a kid.”

“Finch did some digging.” Lionel’s stomach drops. “Five years ago, you were a regular here. Came in one or two evenings a week for almost four months. Then, suddenly, you stopped.”

Lionel’s whiteknuckling the steering wheel. He puts his hand in his lap. “I ain’t heard a question yet.”

Reese’s eyes bore into him. “What exactly did Simmons do to you?” 

Lionel wets his lips. He looks down at his phone. In ten minutes he’s supposed to meet Simmons at an address five doors down from the club, so they can walk in together. 

“Nothing,” he says, low and quiet. “Simmons was the one that made them stop.”

He gets out of the car while Reese sits there, unmoving. He makes it all the way to the rendezvous with Simmons without Reese coming after him.

*

2.

“Well at least for once you don’t look like you sell vacuum cleaners for a living.” Simmons looks him up and down critically. “All right, listen. When we get in there, you cannot choke. Look me in the eye and tell me you understand that.”

Lionel arches an eyebrow. “Okay Shakespeare, that’s some good drama. I ain’t a rookie, remember?”

Simmons stares at him unblinking, but Lionel’s relaxed, unbothered. 

It’s funny how things work out. Simmons can’t be sure that Lionel’s against HR because he can’t see past the fact that Lionel’s against _him_. Nobody mouths off to Simmons like he does. Lionel’s confident around him in a way he’s got no right to be, and Simmons can’t understand it. 

“Just remember you got eight grand riding on this,” Simmons mutters.

Like he could forget. If it weren’t for that bonus money, he could have backed out of this business without raising any eyebrows. He’s so pissed that he almost doesn’t want the money, except, you know. It’s eight grand.

The club is called the Loft, but it isn’t one. Maybe it used to be and then it moved, Lionel doesn’t know. These days it sits on the first floor of a converted warehouse in Queens. You walk in, you’re in the front room with the bar, the seating area, and the dance floor. You can’t go upstairs without showing ID and paying a hefty cover, because that’s where they keep the equipment. The furniture, whatever the hell you call it, for when people want to get spanked and tie each other up. 

Up there, all the way in the back, there’s a narrow hallway with an office and a few private rooms that only open by invitation of the owner. What goes on inside of them is nobody’s business, supposedly. Only Lionel happens to know that HR generates a few hundred thousand dollars worth of blackmail material out of those rooms every year. 

He’d helped manufacture some of it.

Lionel stands there at the bottom of the steps like a statue, staring up at the bouncers. Some part of him won’t even be surprised if Stills comes along to squeeze the back of his neck, push him gently towards the stairs. He feels like he’s in a bubble, quiet, set apart from the crowd and the music. 

“Here.” A heavy hand clamps down on Lionel’s shoulder and begins steering him in a straight line towards the bar. “Have a drink. Corelli’s a piece of work, you’re gonna need it.”

Lionel asks for a Shirley Temple. The look on Simmons’ face is almost worth the agony of getting sober in the first place. 

Before he can do anything but glare, though, one of the club attendants comes over, all legs and hair and big smiles, to give them Mr. Corelli’s regards, and show them to a table. There’s a booth set aside for them in a dark corner, cordoned off with one of those miniature velvet ropes and a little wobbly sign that says “Reserved”. 

Simmons slides in on one side, Lionel on the other. 

It bugs Lionel that he never saw a picture of Corelli or anything. He’d looked up the website for the club, since he knew it had changed hands from when he was a regular, but there wasn’t any information about Corelli on there. Worse, he doesn’t have any idea what that Jorge kid looks like. Screw Reese anyway for being all weird and withholding. Lionel could walk right past the kid and not even realize that’s who he came here to help.

Simmons is scanning the crowd every few seconds. To Lionel, he seems nervous, which is so out of character that it’s starting to make him nervous too. “You worried Corelli’s not gonna show or something?” he asks.

“No,” says Simmons slowly. “I ain’t worried about that.”

That’s when Lionel sees Reese crossing the room. He’s walking half a step behind another guy, dark hair, dark beard, 5’7 or 5’8, nice suit. Reese is wearing black leather and jeans. They look good on him, but they also make him look rough. Like a big strong guy who’s just smart enough to not ask dumb questions. 

Like someone who isn’t even close to being as dangerous as he really is.

All of a sudden, Simmons straightens up. “Corelli,” he says, looking down at his beer as he picks it up.

“Oh yeah? Where?”

Simmons looks across the room, right at Reese. Lionel’s heart thumps a few beats, until he remembers to look at the other guy.

A few seconds later, when they’re almost to the table, Lionel gets his first decent look at Corelli’s face. For a few seconds after that, there’s nothing but TV static in his head.

There’s a lot of stuff Lionel can’t remember about the last time he came here. How many drinks he had, or who was paying for them. How long the whole thing lasted, how many people were involved. Any of their names.

What he does remember is the one guy’s face. Corelli’s put on some weight, and after five years there’s some extra grey in his hair, but it’s him. 

“Lionel.” Simmons leans across the booth until they’re so close they could be kissing. “You make a scene, you take a swing at him, you do _anything_ to screw this up for me, and I will fuckin’ kill you.”

Only then does Lionel realize that he’s already halfway out of his seat. His heart is racing, his skin is tingling. All he can hear inside his head is a high-pitch animal whine of terror.

Bit by bit, Lionel forces himself to relax back into the booth. 

“Who’s the other guy,” he remembers to ask, glad at least that nobody’s gonna wonder why if he sounds nervous.

“I don’t know him.” Simmons stares at Reese, totally expressionless, like it’s taking so much effort to not look angry that he can’t look like anything else.

Corelli smiles expansively as he nears the table. His eyes go straight to Lionel. There’s a nasty, smug gleam in his beady little eyes, and Lionel grits his teeth on instinct.

“Mr. Corelli.” Under the table, Simmons grabs Lionel’s knee, fingers digging in like spikes. “I don’t know your friend.” 

“Oh, no worries, Patrick. Mr. Mooney’s just like you. A professional.” Corelli smiles and claps Reese’s arm. “He’ll drive, you’ll guard, right?”

Simmons nods, but Lionel can tell he’s not happy. Corelli probably didn’t plan to hire a driver until Reese turned up with some kind of story to convince him he needed one. Maybe Simmons wasn’t counting on having to divvy up his pay.

Corelli gestures for Reese to sit down, and slides in next to Simmons. Across the table, he catches Lionel’s eye and gives him a little wink. Then Reese crowds into the booth on Lionel’s side. He presses their legs together and leans back with his arm resting along the top of the booth, like they’re a couple of teenagers on their first date at the movie theater.

Lionel gives him a look like _what the hell do you think you’re doing._ Reese just grins, big and toothy. Kind of insinuating. Like, Lionel wouldn’t smile at another guy that way, not unless he had a reason to think it would be okay. But the kind of guy Reese is pretending to be probably wouldn’t care if it was okay or not. 

“Mr. Mooney, I see you’re making friends with Detective Fusco.” Corelli tilts his head. “Long time no see, Lionel.”

Lionel doesn’t say anything. He’s keeping his hands under the table because he doesn’t want anyone to see that they’re shaking, but he’s got nothing to say.

“Nice to meet you.” Reese leans in a little, still with that smile. “You can call me John.” 

“Yeah, thanks. You can call me Detective Fusco.”

Corelli laughs, loud enough to draw attention from neighboring tables. Simmons looks at Reese, then looks at where his arm is resting. 

“We got a few issues to talk over,” says Simmons. “If that’s okay by you.”

Corelli sniffs. “Yeah. Let me get a drink.” He looks for a waiter, then looks at Reese. “Actually, Mr. Mooney, my friend and I need to talk privately for a minute, so...”

Reese slides out of the booth, then turns to Lionel. “Detective?”

“I can get up without help, but thanks.” 

He’s careful not to touch Reese, or get close enough for Reese to touch him. He can feel Simmon’s eyes on his back, watching. Reese’s hand settles between his shoulders. Lionel twitches away from him like there’s a spider crawling up his back.

“Mooney.” Corelli crooks a finger, and Reese bends low. His smile stays in place as Corelli whispers in his ear, but he finds Lionel with his eyes. They’re flat, cold, like they were the first time Lionel saw them in his rearview mirror. 

He could make it out the door, maybe. If he bolts right this second, gets lost in the crowd.

A second later Reese is at his side, clutching his arm, steering him around. Neither of them say anything until there’s plenty of space between them and Corelli’s table.

“You better tell me what your plan is, or it won’t be my fault if I throw a wrench in it,” Lionel says.

“Not here.” Reese’s grip is like iron, but he’s not hurting him. Simmons’ fingertips probably left little round bruises on his knee. Lionel lets Reese drag him along until Reese tries to take him upstairs. But at the foot of the staircase, he balks.

“What do we need to go up there for?”

“Corelli wants me distracted so I don’t get curious why he needs to talk to Simmons without me,” says Reese. He looks down at Lionel, eyes moving over his face. “He offered you up as bait.”

“He _what?_ ”

“Corelli saw me flirting. He thinks if I get the chance to tie you up and have my way with you, he won’t have to pay me as much. He might even be telling Simmons to get rid of me once the job’s done.”

Lionel’s never blushed and felt a chill up his spine at the same time before. “He’s got to be the only guy in the world who’d fall for that.”

“Hmm.” Reese is looking out at the room, lazy and self-indulgent, but Lionel can feel the tension in his arm. “You didn’t tell me that you and Corelli have a history.”

“Oh, did he tell you that?”

“Yes.”

“Really?” Lionel takes a half step away, and Reese lets him go.

“He’s very pleased you’re here tonight. Apparently he made special arrangements with Simmons so he’d bring you along with him.” Reese studies him. “You didn’t know.”

“No, I didn’t know that.”

Reese blinks, slow and lazy, waiting for Lionel to fill in the blanks. Too bad for him. Right now, to Lionel, Reese is only about the fourth or fifth scariest thing here.

Lionel jerks his head at the stairs. “You know what goes on up there, right?” 

“It’s a BDSM space,” says Reese calmly, a little amused. “So?”

“So, smart guy, yeah there’s kinky stuff goes on. But more importantly, it’s staffed by people who’ve been coerced by HR. Hookers who got picked up by unis two, three times a week, until someone came along with a better offer. That sort of thing.” He makes himself take a breath. “Everybody who goes up there gets their hands dirty. You’re not allowed to just sit and watch.”

John’s eyes are kind of narrow even when they’re not squinting at him with suspicion or dislike. But for just a second, they get real big and round. 

“Anywhere upstairs they could stash someone like Jorge for a couple weeks at a time?”

“Yeah, they got rooms up there. Private, invitation only, for friends of the owner. At least that’s how it went five years back. Corelli might do things different than the last guy.”

“What kind of security?”

“At least four guards with tasers, batons. The two in back will have guns. Actually, scratch that, if they’re holding Corelli’s boy-toy up there tonight, they’ll all have guns. How about you?”

Reese smiles. “I’m never really disarmed.”

“Nice. Real macho, I bet all the girls swoon.” 

“They don’t want to scare off their rich sleazebags clients if they can help it. I’m guessing they won’t be in a hurry to bring the guns out.”

Reese starts up the steps. Lionel follows, heart pounding in his ears. “Jackass,” he says loudly. “You are not getting shot here, I already have enough nightmares about this place.”

Reese looks back, hand on the railing.

“Corelli wants to watch while you lay into me. He’ll have a hidden camera or two up there, for blackmail.” Lionel’s never gonna forgive Reese for making him spell it out like this. “As long as he’s getting what he wants, no one’s going to notice if we look around a little.”

“I’m not going to make you do that.” There’s an unhappy crease in Reese’s forehead. “Corelli’s little obsession with you doesn’t need any encouragement.”

“Are you kidding me? What are you, my boyfriend all of a sudden?”

Reese’s eyes darken, and his jaw sets. “You should’ve listened when Harold warned you off this.”

Lionel silently agrees. Still he stands there, arms loose, until Reese finally screws his mouth up and grabs his hand. Tight, like they really are sweethearts. They march up the stairs together like that, Reese matching his shorter stride, keeping him close.

Before Lionel knows it, they’re past the bouncers and inside the curtain, and he’s looking out at the floor, with Reese still hanging onto his arm closer than a professional bodyguard. 

The room’s changed in the last five years. The lights are a lot lower, and there are red strobe lights all over the place. He can see okay enough to avoid running into things and people, but faces at a distance are gonna be harder. 

On the plus side, he can barely see the dozens of naked, writhing bodies around them. That stuff is distracting, and not in a way that’s fun for him.

“There,” he says, gesturing across the floor. “That cross thing is free now, we should take it.”

Reese does an actual double take. “Really?”

“Look around. It’s about the only station on the floor where we can watch the entrance and the hallway to the back rooms at the same time. We need to grab it before somebody else does.”

Reese blinks, slowly. He stares at Lionel for so long that Lionel starts to squirm. “You waiting for an engraved invitation or what?” he says.

Reese’s mouth becomes a flat line. His shoulders straighten. A bright, hot light shines in his dark eyes.

“Now don’t get carried away or nothing, all right?” Lionel backs away even as Reese creeps forward, herding him up to the St. Andrew’s cross. “You can make it look good without going for the kill, you know?”

His back hits the wooden cross faster than he’s expecting it to. The structure rocks a little. Reese grasps his shoulders to steady him.

“Do you trust me?” says Reese.

Lionel stares at him. “It ain’t ever been about trust between us, buddy.”

Judging from the thundercloud that settles over Reese’s face, it’s not what he wanted to hear. 

He tugs at Lionel’s arm, giving him a spin, until Lionel wobbles almost smacks into the cross face-first. Reese catches him with an arm across his chest, then takes one of Lionel’s wrists in each hand and pins them over his head. 

“Thank you,” he says, and it takes Lionel a second to realize that Reese is talking to one of the club attendants. She’s standing next to their station, offering Reese a tray of...stuff. Cuffs and chains and fiddly little metal things Lionel doesn’t understand the purpose of. 

“You’ve done this before,” says Reese, as he starts working Lionel’s meaty hands through the opening of a pair of leather cuffs. They’re soft, comfortable, like a good pair of gloves. “Were you into it?” He uses a couple of D-rings to connect the cuffs to the eyelet bolts at the top of the crossbeams, then tests them by yanking a little. He runs his fingers over Lionel’s fingers, and Lionel shivers. “Any of it?”

Lionel isn’t tall enough to see over the V of the cross. “You better be keeping an eye on the door, cause I can’t see shit,” he warns Reese.

“Answer the question, Lionel.”

“No, I don’t think I’m gonna. This ain’t a confessional, and you make a lousy priest.”

He feels a puff of warm air against the back of his neck, like Reese is laughing at him. 

This isn’t like anything he’s ever done before. He’s off-balance with his wrists chained to this thing, leaning into the center of the cross and praying it can take his weight. He can feel Reese standing right behind him. 

“Relax.” Hands start moving over his back. Big hands, warm. They smooth across his shoulders, over his shirt. “It’s okay.”

“It ain’t gonna be okay if you tear out of here chasing somebody and leave me hanging like this.”

“I’m not going to do that.” His hands are pressing harder, digging into muscle, kneading out knots and tension that have been there for years. Like somebody’s warming him up for a fight, only he doesn’t get to take a swing at anybody. He’s got to stay where he is, lean against this cross thing, and let Reese do all the punching for both of them. 

“I wouldn’t leave you helpless.” Reese’s voice is low and raspy, close to his ear.

“You’d leave me in a second if you had to.”

Reese makes a _hmm_ noise. “Only if I had to,” he says. “And only because we’re not alone. Someone would come along and let you down.”

 _Yeah, but maybe not until they had a little fun with me first._ The words stick in his throat. He’s putting everything he’s got into not being afraid, but that’s not much. 

“Don’t tense up,” says Reese. “Ssh, relax. People will think you don’t like me.”

Lionel snorts.

“Come on, Lionel. You like me a little.”

“I’m more worried about the other way around, I’m the one who’s tied up.”

“You don’t need to worry.” Reese sounds surprised. Maybe even a little hurt, although without looking at his face there’s no way to know if that’s for real. “I’ve got you. I’m not going to let anybody mess with you.”

“No, when it comes to messing with me, you’ve got it locked down.”

That quiet little laugh sounds in his ear again, and then Reese is combing his fingertips through Lionel’s hair, raking his nails lightly against his scalp. Lionel shivers, grateful that nobody can see his face. Lionel doesn’t know what Reese is trying to do, but it’s working, it’s peeling back all his layers, making it harder and harder to pretend that he’s not affected.

“This your idea of blending in?” Lionel cranes his head around, trying to get a glimpse of Reese over his shoulder. “Look around, big guy. You better get real, or they’re gonna throw us out of here for spreading diabetes.”

Reese squeezes the back of his neck. “Are you asking me to hurt you?”

“Yeah, you’d love that. Making me beg for it, when you know good and well we don’t have a choice.”

Reese steps back. Lionel feels cold all over. The music thumps in time with his heartbeat, and almost as loud.

All of a sudden, without a word of warning, something smacks his legs high up on his thighs. He’s got jeans on, and boxers under them, but it stings like it landed on bare skin. 

“Holy _fuck_ ,” Lionel says, and immediately bites his tongue. 

Behind him, Reese makes a high-pitched sound. Lionel’s braced for him to start laughing his ass off, but that’s all there is, just that one surprised little noise.

Lionel doesn’t make another sound after that.

It’s a belt, he thinks. Something narrow and flexible, but not as narrow as a cane. Lionel knows what getting caned feels like. This doesn’t hurt so bad you want to die. It hurts normal amounts. 

He decides not to think about the fact that there wasn’t a belt on that tray. About Reese using his own belt, leather still warm from his body, for something like this.

Reese belts him three more times, then stops. His hand brushes Lionel’s ass, but he snatches it away again. Like _that’s_ over the line.

“Anything you need to tell me?” Reese leans in so close that Lionel can feel stubble against his ear.

He shakes his head, leans his sweaty forehead against the faux leather padding on the wood.

“Lionel.” Reese’s hands settle on his shoulders. “Do you need to stop?”

“I need to get this job done, you spotted the kid yet?”

“Not yet.” It takes him a second too long to answer. He sounds tense. “We have company, though. Corelli just walked in.”

Lionel doesn’t get a chance to decide how he feels about that before Reese is _on_ him, pressed along his back, angling their faces so close together that for just a second or two Lionel feels like they’re in some secret hideout, a warm dark space just for the two of them. 

“I’m going to unclip the D-rings,” Reese whispers. “But keep your hands high. It’ll look like you’re still chained up.”

He pulls away again, leaving Lionel cold and exposed, and _covered_ in the scent of Reese’s fucking Old Spice. 

Hands close around his wrists and start working on all the jangly metal pieces holding Lionel in place. He knows he’s free when he feels the tension give, but the hands just catch him again, press his palms flat to the wood. “Keep them there,” Reese reminds him.

Lionel doesn’t have to ask what the point is. Corelli came up here to see the show. Lionel keeps his hands high.

For some reason, it takes him completely by surprise when the belt comes down on him like a bolt of lightning a few seconds later.

Lionel howls. He doesn’t even try to restrain it. He’s got just enough self-control to either keep his hands up, or keep quiet, and there’s no point in keeping quiet under the circumstances.

The next blow falls a couple of seconds later. Then the next. They’re spaced about five seconds apart, and they land with the exact same amount of force each time, giving Lionel just enough time to gasp for air. A high, shrill noise is coming out of his mouth, but Lionel’s got no control over that. Each time the belt lands, it feels like he’s getting hit hard enough to leave a bruise, and cut deep enough to bleed. Then, for the big finish, the bruise gets set on fire.

His face is wet. His nose is running. His throat’s hoarse.

“I hope I’m not interrupting anything,” says Corelli.

When the next blow doesn’t come, Lionel sags against the cross, gasping.

“He took thirty for me already,” says Reese, which is a lie. It was more like five. Definitely not more than ten. Reese sounds awkward, shy, not very bright and belligerent as hell. It takes Lionel a second to realize this is him being Mooney.

“Yeah, Lionel takes it real good, don’t he?” Corelli rests his hand on the wood right next to Lionel’s hand. “You were always good for me, Lionel. I’m glad to see my friend is taking care of you. He’s, uh, he’s one scary dude, Mr. Mooney.” Corelli laughs, scratches his eyebrow. “Hasn’t been working for me that long, but I got to say, he doesn’t disappoint.” 

It takes everything Lionel has to push away from the cross and look Corelli in the face. “Yeah, this guy packs a wallop,” he says. “But I seem to recall you hit like a vegetarian, Corelli, so it’s not much of a comparison.”

Corelli’s smile vanishes. 

Suddenly Reese is leaning over him again, messing with the chains and the clips and rings, tugging Lionel’s arms down and arranging them at his sides. Which isn’t something Lionel ever thought he’d need help doing, putting his arms down, but his shoulders are a lot more stiff than he realized.

“The hell are you doing,” Reese hisses.

“Watch and learn. What are you doing?”

“You want to pretend to be tied up for the rest of the night?”

When Reese moves away, Lionel catches Corelli’s eye by accident. There’s a mean, hungry look there it’s hard not to flinch from. He advances on Lionel until Reese shifts on his feet. Corelli looks at him and grins.

“So I guess you two bonded. That’s good. We love our friends in HR, right, Mooney?” Corelli jerks his head at Lionel. “See, I bought this place two years back, just as soon as that clown Mulready decided to retire down south. It’s a good investment, you know, the economy, whatever happens, people are always gonna want to fuck, right?” 

“Sure,” says Reese, gazing vaguely out into the crowd.

“See, I knew I was either gonna buy this place, or I was gonna buy this strip joint in Atlantic City. But when it came right down to it, I couldn’t turn my back on all the happy memories.” Corelli gestures around them, and then at Lionel. “I can only hope you and Officer Simmons have half as much fun on your road trip as I had with Lionel on all our little rides.”

Reese looks blank. Corelli snickers so loud that he draws eyes from all over the room. Lionel’s suddenly grateful for the fact that he feels like one giant bruise. It’s real hard to feel embarrassed or worried or anything like that with his ass glowing like he’s some kind of big ugly firefly.

“Can I get some water,” he says to a passing lingerie-clad floor attendant. Reese gives this tiny, guilty-looking little flinch, like he did a bad thing by not checking that Lionel was hydrated.

A cold water bottle finds its way back to him. Lionel tears off the lid and downs half of it when he happens to look past Reese and Corelli to the entrance by the top of the staircase. That’s when he sees Simmons coming up the stairs, gripping a teenager by the arm.

Maybe he didn’t get to see a picture, but Lionel still recognizes Jorge Reem as soon as he lays eyes on him. The kid has a pretty face and big dark eyes. Barely looks eighteen. He’s skinny, all sharp edges, and he looks scared. Timid. Like someone Corelli could floss his teeth with.

Simmons marches him along so fast the kid’s feet barely touch the ground, but then his gaze lands on Lionel, and he stops dead.

Until that moment it hasn’t occurred to Lionel to wonder how he looks to other people when he’s like this. But now it hits him that he’s got leather cuffs dangling from his wrists, that he’s sweaty and wrecked from letting Reese work him over, and that Reese is using the same body language around him that a dog uses around an old bone. Simmons had said nobody here was going to mess with him. Lionel never believed that, but judging from the way his gaze is flickering from Lionel’s cuffed wrists, to Corelli, and back again, he thinks maybe Simmons had believed it a little.

“Hey.” Lionel gets Corelli’s attention and jerks his thumb back in Jorge’s direction. “So I guess this is the piece of ass you brought us here to babysit.”

On cue, Reese shifts, tilts his head around like he’s stretching his neck. 

“He don’t look so tough,” Lionel continues. “You really gonna need Lurch _and_ Herman Munster just to keep an eye on him?”

“Ah, maybe keep your voice down, Lionel. I haven’t told him about the trip yet, he’ll only get overexcited. I should warn you, Mr. Mooney, he’s resourceful. A smart boy. At his age he should still be with his family, but his family wasn’t good to him. He was lucky to find me. I take good care of my people.”

“Yeah.” Lionel breathes deep and takes the plunge. “Yeah, I remember. I got a few little souvenirs from how good you took care of me.”

The air around Reese seems to get five degrees colder.

Corelli goes still, then turns slowly to face him. “Souvenirs, huh?” His expression is like how Reese used to look when they first met, greedy and playful and threatening all at once. “You want to let me see? I’d like to see, Lionel.”

Lionel’s heart does some kind of fluttery sideways tilt in his chest, like he’s cliff-diving. “There’s all kinds of stuff I could show you, Corelli. We got catching up to do.”

Corelli nods, slow and thoughtful. He looks at Reese next, but Lionel’s not about to make that mistake. He can guess approximately how happy Reese is with him right now. They’ve been getting along okay lately, but that usually changes whenever Lionel displays symptoms of independent thinking. 

When Corelli doesn’t drop dead under the intensity of Reese’s disapproval, he whistles loudly, crooking a finger in Simmons’ direction. Simmons walks over, trailing two members of the upstairs security team.

“I’m going to send you boys on your way a little early,” he says. “The rest of the crew will meet you at the rendezvous point in Jersey.”

Simmons doesn’t like the sound of that, Lionel can tell, but it’s Reese who speaks up.

“You said we’d have more guys with us on the first leg. Fewer guns means more risk. We get another fifteen percent, each.”

Corelli’s nostrils flare wide, but he gives Reese a tight, annoyed smile. “Yeah, you know, that’s fair. This was last minute, I sprung this on you.” Corelli grabs Reese’s arm and shoves him away. “Now go somewhere I don’t have to look at your face while I consult with your colleague.”

Simmons brushes past Lionel deliberately on his way to take Reese’s spot next to Corelli. He tries to meet Lionel’s eyes, but Lionel doesn’t play along. As soon as Corelli is distracted, he joins Reese over by the attendant’s station, a few feet from where Jorge is standing and poking at his phone. Hulking security guards loom on either side of him.

In this light, he doesn’t look much older than Lee. 

Reese looks up as Lionel positions himself where Corelli can see him. “You got a plan for Simmons once you and him take the kid out of the club?” Lionel asks.

“I was given a syringe to keep Jorge quiet, but I think I’ll stick it in Simmons instead. That should be easier, now that it’s just going be him and me. How did you know Corelli would do that?”

“I didn’t. I just figured, you and the kid would be safer if I was back here keeping Corelli distracted. The other thing was just luck.”

John shifts his weight, slouching against Lionel slightly, bumping their arms together. “It’s not safe for you to stay here with Corelli.”

“Neither of us came out here to be safe.” 

“This...is a different kind of risk.”

“Oh, right. You and that line of yours.” Lionel looks around casually, tries to ignore the way Corelli and Simmons are both darting little glances his direction. “Relax. I’m good at this, remember?”

Reese looks away. “Someone will be in touch when Jorge is safe.”

“You and Finch better take care of him.”

In profile, Lionel can see the lines creasing all around Reese’s eyes. “Watch out for yourself.”

Something in his voice makes Lionel want to sit with those words for a minute, pick ‘em apart a little. Only there’s no time. “Mooney,” Simmons bellows, as Corelli drifts toward the attendant’s station. “Time to hit the road. Grab the kid.”

Reese drops back into character as Mooney so easily that Lionel finds it kind of concerning. “Okay,” he says, sulky and half a step behind. “The van gassed up?”

“The fuck do I know, we’ll find out together.”

They’re all gone in an eyeblink. John takes the kid’s arm and pulls him along. It looks like rough treatment, but he handles all the people he bodyguards that way, including Finch. 

He can’t look back, obviously. Mooney wouldn’t, even if he did have a little crush on the guy who took some licks for him. 

Corelli is waiting to get his attention as soon as Lionel looks up. “You get that attached to everybody who beats your ass for you, Lionel?”

Lionel blinks at him for a second, then snorts. “Not everybody.”

“So what does it take to stand out from the crowd?” 

“There ain’t no crowd.”

Corelli steps close, right up in Lionel’s face, and he squashes the instinct to look around for Reese. He’s not here. He can’t help. This is all Lionel.

“That was the thing about you, that was what made you special. I remember...” He laughs, shaking his head. “Jimmy, he’d bring you up after you’d had a couple drinks downstairs, and you’d look around the room with that big, friendly smile, and no matter how many guys were there you’d act like you were happy to see ‘em. That’s what made them come back, you know. You were _nice_.”

Lionel opens his water bottle back and finishes it off. He takes his time. Next to him, Corelli’s practically vibrating.

“I don’t drink the hard stuff no more,” Lionel says. “But if you want me to smile so bad, you can take me downstairs and buy me a ginger ale. Maybe a cheesesteak, I didn’t get any dinner.”

Corelli cocks his head. “Yeah, Lionel. You know what, sure. Let’s get some grub, come on.”

Lionel lets Corelli step up close to his side, wrap an arm around his waist. He smells like rich guy cologne, and cigarettes, and tequila. It turns Lionel’s nose into a time machine, yanks him back five years, until he can feel the hard press of bodies pinning him down, opening him up, pulling and shoving and hurting until all Lionel can do is go away deep in his own head.

“I want you to know that I’m really looking forward to this,” Corelli whispers, and slips a finger inside Lionel’s collar, scratching lightly at the back of his neck.

Lionel feels something pinch right below his ear. He slaps at it like he got bit by a mosquito.

“I missed you,” says Corelli, looking kind of wistful and hungry at the same time, but Lionel’s not watching him anymore. All he can see of Corelli is the syringe in his hand.

*

The drug is something weird. It knocks him out fast, but it doesn’t keep him knocked out for long, and he stays limp and groggy. Awake enough to know what’s happening to him, to feel it. Not enough to say or do anything about it.

He wakes up lying somewhere else. Aching, tied up. People reach for him, move him around. Touch him. He thrashes in place for awhile, they leave. He sleeps.

They come back.

He doesn’t know long it goes on for. 

He can’t think clearly enough to take stock of his life or anything like that, but he remembers something. A thought that went through his head that night he spent in the woods, digging a hole into the frozen ground to roll his best friend into.

Nobody told Lionel when he joined HR, you’ll make an extra five grand every month, but also, nobody decent is ever going to give a crap about you again. 

He can take it. He was a fat scrappy kid who’d learned how to hit back, so nobody ever wasted much sympathy on him anyway. What he couldn’t figure, though, was what Vera Stills did to deserve her husband disappearing without a trace. Never having a body to bury, no idea if he was alive or dead. Kids growing up thinking maybe their dad’s out there somewhere and he just doesn’t want to see them. 

He wonders if Reese even knew Stills had a family.

If he doesn’t come home from this one, will Reese and Finch even think about Lee? He hopes, at the very least, they won’t leave him wondering. Won’t let him think his old man wouldn’t be there with him if he could. Lionel’s paid off enough of his debt for that by now. He hopes so, at least. He hopes John thinks so.

*

3.

He’s warm, is the first thing he notices. Comfortably warm, like someone’s grandma dropped an afghan around his shoulders while he was dozing off. And snug, like someone tucked him in real cozy. 

But unlike all the other times he’s woken up, he’s on his feet and walking. Somebody’s holding him up.

“Almost there,” says a voice, right in his ear. “We’re almost there, just a little further.”

He blinks, breathes in the smell of good leather and cheap aftershave. He tries to ask a question, like, where are we, where we headed, but his mouth just kind of flaps when he tries to move it.

“End of the hallway now,” says the voice in his ear, as the arm around his shoulders tightens. “Then out through the door. Harold’s waiting with our ride. Nearly there.”

Something doesn’t feel right with his—like, with his whole body. It’s not pain, exactly. He’s real numb. Pain can’t penetrate the fog in his head. But he’s getting text messages from the pain. _Sorry buddy, almost there, accident on the turnpike, we’ll catch up real soon._ All down his back and ass and legs he feels kind of bruised, in a way that doesn’t matter so much right now but is gonna matter a lot down the line. 

A phone rings. The arm around his shoulders adjusts a little, and suddenly Lionel is watching the floor rapidly approach his face. A hand grabs the back of his shirt, hauling him upright. 

“We’re almost there,” says Reese, repeating himself the way you do with scared kids, or people in the hospital who can’t really hear you. “Harold has a car, we’re getting you out.”

“Sounds good,” Lionel says. _Sowzgd,_ is the sound that comes out of his mouth, but Reese grips his arm a little harder, so it looks like he gets points for trying.

There’s a loud thud, like somebody opened a door with their foot, and then a blast of cold air that forces an embarrassing noise out of Lionel, practically a whine. “Sorry,” says Reese, like it being November is somehow his fault.

“Mr. Reese!” There’s a car door slamming, then footsteps, someone speed-limping his direction. “Here, I’ll get the door. Did you find Corelli?”

“No. Later.” 

“Agreed, we have other priorities.”

Lionel finally forces his eyes open, but the yellow streetlamp glare is too much for him. He turns his face and mashes his nose into Reese’s chest. 

A big, warm hand comes to grip the back of Lionel’s head, just for a second, before he’s getting moved along, manhandled into the back of a car.

“Here, I brought this. I thought you might find yourself without your coat.” Finch leans into the backseat, tucking a knitted blanket in around Lionel. “Do you need a doctor?” he says, dropping his voice. Like his boy back there doesn’t have those weirdly big ears and the ability to eavesdrop at a hundred yards.

He shakes his head.

“Lionel…” Finch is giving him this look like nothing Lionel’s ever seen from him before, all earnest and wide-eyed. 

“No doctors,” Lionel mumbles.

Finch’s mouth bunches up like he’s about to kiss a frog. “What _do_ you need?” he says, voice soft. 

Lionel’s never any good at answering that question, even when his brains aren’t scrambled. “You could give me a lift to my place,” he manages. 

Finch makes a face like Lionel just insulted his mother, or his hacking abilities. “I don’t _think_ so,” he says. “We’re going to a nearby safehouse, where you will rest for the remainder of the evening.”

He opens his mouth to protest.

“Start resting now, Lionel.” Finch covers his hand with his, and gives him a searching look with round blue eyes. Then he disappears, and Reese gets in the back seat, scooting over until their sides are pressed up together, like in the booth earlier. 

The lights of the city fly past the car windows. Lionel’s eyes drift shut. 

_This isn’t so bad,_ he thinks, as a hand tugs at him gently until he lets himself lean against the only warmth he can reach. _This might even be worth it._

*

When they reach the safehouse, Reese and Finch go in the kitchen to have a short, quiet argument. In the living room, Lionel’s perched on sofa cushions, staring into the middle distance and feeling like he’s five miles away from his own body. Eventually, Reese stomps out the front door. Finch follows him as far as Lionel’s couch, then stops.

“Where’s he going?” Lionel says, just to say something. It’s no skin off his nose what Reese does with the rest of his night.

Finch turns away from the door and takes his glasses off, cleans them with a little square piece of cloth he takes out of his pocket. “He's going to find Corelli,” he says. “And kill him.”

Lionel’s stomach swoops like the ground just dropped out from beneath him. In a different room, a clock ticks off the seconds like water dropping from a leaky faucet.

“So?” he says. “Aren’t you gonna stop him?”

“I’m afraid his mind is made up,” says Finch, in a vague, distant voice. “I suppose I could have tried a little harder to talk him out of it, but, well.”

He blinks at nothing a couple of times, then gives Lionel a weak smile. “Are you cold Detective? I think we left the blanket in the car. I’ll find another. I have a pot of soup warming on the stove, too.”

Lionel doesn’t know that he can eat anything, but it seems rude to say so. 

Ten, fifteen minutes later, Finch brings him a mug of soup. Lionel stirs it and watches the steam rise up. He’s not that hungry, but he’s thirsty. Lionel’s a little surprised when Finch sits down next to him with a mug of his own. He never would have pictured him like this, eating on the couch, hunched over the coffee table in case of a spill. 

“Did you think that you were being discarded?” says Finch, into the silence.

When Lionel gives him a blank look, he gestures, a little wildly. “Last night, when I said you wouldn’t be needed. It crossed my mind that, perhaps you thought I was severing your connection with our operation, and that’s why you pursued this case after you were told not to. As a demonstration of your abilities, and continued usefulness.”

Lionel’s stomach twists. He puts down his mug. “Look,” he says. “Letting Corelli get at me with the needle was a screw up, I get that. But me going to the meet with Simmons was still the right call. How many times am I gonna need to explain that?”

He flinches like Lionel just tried to sock him. “You didn’t _screw up_ ,” he says, all high-pitched and incredulous. “That isn’t what I was saying.” 

“Yeah, well.” Lionel wants to get up and pace around, or lie on his side maybe, but he doesn’t want to do either of those things while Finch is watching. 

Going to the meet wasn’t a screw up, but thinking he knew Corelli, that he could handle him—that was. 

At least Lionel’s the only one paying for it.

Finch stands up suddenly, starts collecting their empty mugs. He returns a couple minutes later with a water bottle, some clothes, and a big Sterilite container with a red cross sticker on the blue lid. He puts the clothes and the bottle down on the sofa next to Lionel. The clothes turn out to be pajamas, in his size.

“I don’t want to be rude,” Lionel says, running his finger over the fine cotton of the pajama top, “but it’s been a hell of a day. I was sort of hoping to see my bed before the sun comes up.”

Finch, rummaging through the box, looks up at him, bug-eyed. “You can’t go home,” he says slowly.

“Okay, but look. I’m beat. I mean, I’m tired,” he clarifies, when Finch flinches. “I need a shower and a bucket of ibuprofen, plus whatever kind of sleep I can get before I have to get up for work tomorrow morning.” He picks up the water bottle, heavy and cold in his hand. “I wouldn’t be much help talking your partner down, anyway. You could try Carter, he listens to her.”

“You cannot leave this safe house until Corelli is accounted for and we’ve made sure that Simmons hasn’t connected the failure of his plans to your involvement in the case.” Finch starts picking out bottles and peering at the expiration dates. “Besides, we can look after you much more conveniently here. Now please, drink your water.”

Lionel starts to say that he doesn’t need anybody looking after him, but Finch is avoiding his eyes and twisting his mouth up, like he knows it’s coming and doesn’t want to hear it. There’s something Lionel doesn’t get about how he’s acting, about the way Reese practically carried him out of that room. He doesn’t think it’s because he’s still fuzzy from the drugs. But he doesn’t really want to sit here figuring it out, either. He wants to lie down on his side and shut his eyes and start the work of forgetting this day ever happened.

“It’s just occurred to me that no one’s yet told you how Mr. Reem is faring,” says Finch, after a moment. He doesn’t look up from poking around in his first aid kit.

“Who?” 

“Jorge Reem. The young man who is no longer in any danger of being spirited out of the country by Corelli or anyone in his employ, thanks in large part to you.”

Lionel blinks. “Shit, the kid. I forgot about him. How’s he doing?”

“He’s fine. He’s safe.” Finch adjusts his glasses, and sets aside a tube of muscle cream. “John was able to subdue Simmons once they were out of sight of the club. It was then a simple matter of explaining the situation and sending Mr. Reem safely on his way with adequate funds and a new identity.”

“No kidding.”

“Yes, I—devoted most of the evening to sorting out the particulars of Jorge’s safe relocation. Only after I had finished did I think to check how you were faring.” Finch drops a few pills into one of those little plastic cups like comes with bottles of cough syrup. “If I had looked in on you at any time before that, we might have spared you some of tonight’s ordeal. It was my mistake. I’m sorry.”

“Wasn’t your fault,” says Lionel automatically.

“Perhaps.” He touches his glasses. “In any case, while I can’t permit you to leave, there’s no reason you can’t make yourself more comfortable. There’s a decent bathroom in the master bedroom upstairs. You’ve been fully conscious for over an hour, it should be safe for you to take a shower by now.”

He “can’t permit” Lionel to leave. This, coming from a guy with a bad back and a busted hip, who won’t touch a gun. But he can’t argue that Finch has real authority, and on a night like tonight Lionel doesn’t mind being bossed a little for his own good. It’s kind of nice that Finch would want to.

“A shower sounds good,” is what he says out loud, because he’s too tired to fight. He’s not so numb anymore, and a shower sounds like the thing to take his mind off all the different ways he feels like crap.

Lionel gets to his feet, careful how he moves, and Finch piles the pajamas and the water bottle in his arms. He gives him the little plastic cup with pills in it, too. 

“You should take those right away. Except for the small white one.” Finch shrugs. “It’s for pain, and it might make you dizzy. Take it just before you lie down.”

Lionel blinks at the pills, and decides on the fly that he’s not gonna ask what the ones that aren’t for pain do. 

Upstairs, the house is pretty ordinary, considering that a rich guy owns it. The bathroom is nice. Big and recently renovated, and the stall shower’s got one of them rainfall, waterfall fixtures. Whatever you call it when the water’s coming down all around you instead of shooting at your face out of a spigot. 

He pretty much turns his back to the mirror as soon as he gets in the room. Just talking is enough to make his face hurt. Tomorrow is soon enough to figure out how to deal with that mess. Half the buttons off his shirt are missing, which at least makes that part of getting undressed easy. 

Button’s missing from the fly of his jeans, too. He kicks them hard into a corner, and gets in under the spray.

“ _Holy shit_ ,” he gasps.

Lionel’s not really that hurt, when you get right down to it. He’s had worse days coming home from work, or from the gym, especially back when he boxed. But he was younger when he was boxing. And he hasn’t had this kind of day at work since he got shot in the ass last year. He’s never felt pain exactly like this before, where there’s a million little needle pricks of fire lighting up the entire back half of his body.

On the other hand, the shower stall is so big that there’s a place in it to sit down. He sits, lets the spray fall gently onto his head, sees reddish water running down his arms and legs. Suddenly he’s thinking about Lee, and the fact that he’s supposed to come over this weekend. What’s he gonna says? _Sorry kid, your old man can’t play hockey today, he got worked over by some guys in a sex club. Wasn’t the first time either._

He knew when he went back there that something like this might happen. He’d walked into it with his eyes open. Actually, he’d fought and pushed his way in, and all the while, Reese and Finch had been trying to stop him. Only now does Lionel realize, they’d probably been trying to protect him. 

What the hell’s so wrong with him anyway that he couldn’t just let them?

Suddenly the bathroom door opens, and the resulting draft sucks all the hot air out of the shower stall. Lionel’s still drawing breath to protest when the frosted glass shower door swings wide, and Reese, fully dressed apart from his jacket, belt, and shoes, walks right in under the water, carrying a bathrobe over his arm.

Lionel stares. “The hell do you think you’re doing?”

“Harold said you came up here two hours ago.” Reese shuts the water off and covers Lionel in the robe.

“No kidding.” He holds still while Reese ties the belt around his waist. “Didn’t notice the time. You think I was drowning, that why you busted in here with your pants on?”

“Yes.” Reese blinks water out of his eyes.

“Oh. Well, good news, that didn’t happen.” 

Reese rests his hands on Lionel’s shoulders. 

Sheer force of habits makes Lionel tense up. Reese never really hurts Lionel when he shoves him around, but the tile’s wet, and accidents happen. Only this time he doesn’t push. Doesn’t try to drag him anywhere. Just wraps big hands around his biceps and squeezes slightly. 

“All right, all right,” Lionel mutters, when he can’t take being stared at anymore. “This is an accident waiting to happen, you know.”

Reese takes his elbow and steers him out of the shower stall and on the bath mat. He hands Lionel a fluffy white towel off the top of the stack, then takes one for himself and goes to dry off in the bedroom. Lionel changes into the pajamas. They’re real nice, dark blue check with dark red and green stripes.

“How you feeling?” says Reese.

He looks across the room. Reese is in drawstring pants and a white undershirt, his towel-dried hair sticking out in all directions. There’s this soft, concerned look on his face that’s not even subtle. He’s as earnest as a Sunday school teacher and it makes Lionel feel more naked than he did in the shower.

“Feel like I got hit by a truck,” he says, sitting down on the edge of the mattress. There’s a window next to the bed, so dark he can see the whole room in its reflection. “Or a convoy of trucks.”

Reese is quiet for a second. “I should have come back for you sooner,” he says. “I’m sorry.”

“Yeah? Because I thought the plan was, you get the kid out and take care of Simmons while I keep Corelli occupied.”

“I never should have left you alone with Corelli in the first place.” 

“That was my decision.”

“He’d hurt you before.” 

“That don’t make him special.”

There’s a shuffling noise behind him, and then the mattress shifts under the weight of another person. 

“Lionel,” says Reese. 

He doesn’t turn around. He’s too afraid of what he’ll do if he sees Reese’s big, sad eyes boring into his. 

Then a hand lights on the back of his arm, and pure reflex has Lionel up and off the bed like a flash. Back to the wall, he looks at John, sitting there with his hand stretched out, eyes all big.

“Sorry.” John swallows. “You’re bleeding a little.”

Lionel twists, tries to look at his own back.

“Here.” John gets up, approaches slowly. He brushes a spot high and toward the middle of Lionel’s back, and Lionel’s skin can’t decide if it wants to crawl or shiver. “I’ll go get the kit from Harold.”

Lionel is sitting down again when John returns with the box under his arm. He’s got another water bottle, too. 

“Harold said to check that you took the pills he gave you. Did you take them?”

“Forgot. They’re in the bathroom.”

Reese brings him the pills from the bathroom, and gives him the water, and watches while he swallows. “How bad is it?” he says.

“I’ll live.”

John nods, blank faced and accepting. “You can take the shirt off, or I can pull it up out of my way.”

Lionel doesn’t know what to say to that. He looks back at the window and sits there, not moving. 

After a couple of seconds, John sit down behind him. Lionel feels cool air against his skin, the slide of fabric along his back. Suddenly he goes still. In the dark window, Lionel sees him staring.

Finally, he reaches for the first aid stuff.

“Finch said you went out looking to kill Corelli,” says Lionel, because he’s a moron who can’t leave well enough alone.

John brushes him with an alcohol swab, and it burns almost as much as the first time John hit him with the belt. The alcohol drips and runs down his back, stinging everywhere it touches. There’s a lot of marks, he can tell. Lionel wonders if John can tell the ones he left apart from all the others.

“I thought you guys didn’t do that,” he says. “Like you had a policy against it, and that’s why all the kneecaps.”

Even without looking, Lionel can tell that the slight motion Reese just made was a shrug.

“So did you find him or not?”

“Corelli’s dead,” John says, toneless. “I didn’t kill him.”

“What, seriously?”

“I wouldn’t lie to you.” He rips the safety seal off a box of sterile gauze pads. “Someone was waiting when he got home. Put two in his head.”

“And that wasn’t you?” 

A little tearing noise, and he pats a dressing into place. “It would have been. Someone just beat me to it.”

“Yeah, but who?”

He can hear the smile. “Beats me, Lionel. You’re the homicide detective.” 

“I guess so.” He holds still while John pushes his shirt up a little more, looking for stuff he can fix with a bandage. “Weird, though. Just as he’s tangling with us, someone else comes along with a score to settle? Some odds.”

John rearranges his legs, makes the mattress shift and the springs creak. “Simmons wasn’t happy with Corelli,” he says quietly. “When we left the club, I told him Corelli wanted you to hang back, and he got upset. He made a phone call before I could knock him out.”

“What, you think he called in a hit on Corelli? That don’t make sense. Even if he wanted Corelli taken out, he’d wait till after he got paid to do it.”

“Corelli paid him half up front. For you.” He touches a spot higher up on Lionel’s back that aches and burns when the air hits it. Lionel jerks away without meaning to. John goes still for a second, then starts cleaning it again. “That’s why Simmons was willing to pay you a big bonus to make it worth your while to cooperate.”

“Great. That’s very nice, and fucked up. But I still don’t get why Simmons wanted him dead in the first place. Corelli sleep with his wife or something?”

Instead of answering, John pulls his shirt down, smoothing his hands over Lionel’s back. “Done here,” he says. “Anywhere else?”

Lionel looks over his shoulder at John, ready to be pissed. But John just looks serious, patient, a little soft around the eyes and mouth.

“I’m all right, you know,” Lionel tells him.

He doesn’t see Reese move. 

John does this tuck-and-roll-sideways maneuver that’s lightning fast, practically a blur, and he comes up out of it sitting upright on Lionel’s side of the bed. Lionel doesn’t even have time to shout.

“ _Jesus Christ_.” He presses a hand to his thumping chest and exhales slowly.

“Sorry.” John puts his arm around Lionel’s shoulders, just like in the booth, and in the cab. 

John’s been finding excuses to touch him all night, now Lionel thinks about it. Only now is he starting to wonder if there’s an actual reason.

“You could warn a guy,” he grouses.

“At my old job, they spent a lot of time training me not to.” John’s hand rubs big warm circles over the one spot on Lionel’s back where touching doesn’t hurt. It feels good, and weird, but in a way he’s okay with, maybe. 

“You’ve admitted that we’re friends once or twice, so I guess a hug’s not over the line,” says Lionel. “But I didn’t realize we were all the way to backrubs.”

John’s hand stills, and then smoothes a path up over his spine before coming to grip the back of his neck. His fingertips thread into Lionel’s hair. “I have boundary issues. You know this.”

“Oh, so _now_ you admit it.”

John gets up. He knocks the dinky embroidered cushions off the bed, turns down the covers, even trades out the fancy pillowcases for normal ones from the linen closet in the hallway. John pushes Lionel to lie back against the pillow. He’s starting to feel a warm, soft glow, like that pill might be kicking now about now.

“Hey, John.” In the window, he can see the tall form hovering at the end of the bed. “Stick with me till I nod off, will you.”

John’s only reply is a quiet, relieved sigh. The mattress dips, the covers shift, and a heavy arm pulls him back against a hard chest.

“Got your back,” John whispers, and Lionel shuts his eyes, and falls asleep like the whole city’s as warm and peaceful as him.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Art for Line of Duty](https://archiveofourown.org/works/24484153) by [st_aurafina](https://archiveofourown.org/users/st_aurafina/pseuds/st_aurafina)




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